Chapter 4 - The Man Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
Enzo refused to let Alessia come.
Alessia refused harder.
“Nona is my family.”
“And that is precisely why you’re emotional.”
“You’re emotional.”
“I’m not.”
“You threatened to throw your own phone through a window thirty seconds ago.”
“That was strategic frustration.”
Despite everything, Luca made a choking sound that might have been laughter.
Enzo glared at him.
They traced the photograph to an abandoned textile factory outside Milan.
The villa security footage revealed the impossible.
Nona had not been dragged away.
She had walked outside voluntarily after receiving a phone call.
Then entered the kidnappers’ car.
“She knew whoever called,” Alessia said.
Enzo looked at the ledger.
“Or believed she did.”
They prepared a decoy copy.
The real documents remained locked away.
Enzo ordered Alessia into an armored vehicle surrounded by guards.
“If anything goes wrong, Luca takes you away.”
“No.”
“That isn’t negotiable.”
She stared at him.
“You’re learning nothing.”
“I learned you knock away hands you don’t want touching you.”
His voice softened.
“I also learned you run toward danger when someone you love is inside it.”
Alessia fell silent.
“So this time,” he continued, “I’m asking.”
That was different.
She nodded.
The factory smelled of oil and damp concrete.
Enzo entered carrying the decoy ledger.
Marco followed.
Alessia waited three hundred meters away with Luca.
Five minutes passed.
Then ten.
Her phone rang.
Unknown number.
She answered.
“Alessia?”
Her heart stopped.
The voice was male.
Older.
Broken.
But something about it reached into a place childhood had preserved.
“Who is this?”
Silence.
Then:
“Your father.”
She could not breathe.
“Papa?”
Luca turned sharply.
“Listen carefully,” the man said. “Enzo is walking into a trap.”
The factory exploded.
Flames burst through the upper windows.
Alessia screamed Enzo’s name.
She ran.
Luca caught her around the waist.
“Let me go!”
“No!”
Gunfire erupted.
Vieri guards rushed forward.
Then a side door crashed open.
Enzo emerged through smoke carrying Nona.
Marco followed, bleeding from his forehead.
Alessia broke free.
Enzo barely had time to lower Nona before Alessia threw her arms around him.
For one second, he froze.
Then his arms closed around her.
Hard.
“You’re alive.”
“I noticed.”
She hit his chest.
“That isn’t funny.”
“No.”
His forehead touched hers.
“But you’re holding me, so I’m taking advantage.”
She pulled back.
“Nona?”
“Fine.”
Her grandmother coughed dramatically from behind them.
“Old, not invisible.”
Alessia rushed to her.
The kidnappers had fled through a rear tunnel.
But Nona had seen their leader.
“Who?”
Nona looked at Enzo.
“Marco’s brother.”
Silence.
Marco went white.
“My brother died twelve years ago.”
“Apparently,” Nona said bitterly, “dead men are becoming common.”
His brother, Stefano Bellandi, had once served Carlo Vieri.
According to Marco, Stefano died during a warehouse fire after being accused of stealing.
Enzo stared at the burning factory.
“Maybe he wasn’t stealing.”
“Maybe he was moving money,” Alessia said.
Exactly as Matteo had discovered.
Her phone remained in her hand.
She remembered the call.
“My father warned me.”
Everyone turned.
Within an hour, technicians traced the call to a public phone near Lake Como.
Enzo and Alessia drove there together.
This time he did not tell her to stay behind.
The address led to a small lakeside chapel.
An old man sat alone inside.
Alessia stopped at the doorway.
He stood slowly.
Twenty-one years had changed him.
But not his eyes.
She knew those eyes.
She had seen them in her own face.
“Alessia.”
She crossed the chapel and slapped him.
The sound echoed.
Matteo did not move.
Then she slapped him again.
“You were alive.”
“Yes.”
“You were alive!”
Her voice broke.
He opened his arms.
She wanted to hate him.
Instead, she collapsed against his chest.
Matteo held his daughter for the first time in more than two decades.
Enzo turned away, giving them privacy.
Later, Matteo explained.
Carlo Vieri had not killed him.
Carlo had saved him.
Stefano Bellandi had been the traitor Matteo discovered.
When Stefano learned Matteo possessed evidence, he arranged the car explosion.
Carlo secretly moved Matteo out of Italy because Stefano’s network had infiltrated police and government offices.
“Why didn’t you come back?”
“I tried.”
Matteo’s eyes filled with shame.
“Every time I approached, someone watching your family appeared. Carlo told me Stefano had survived. If I returned, he would use you to reach me.”
“And after Carlo died?”
“I no longer knew whom to trust.”
Enzo stood across the chapel.
“You could have trusted me.”
Matteo laughed without humor.
“You were Carlo’s son.”
“And Alessia paid the price for your fear.”
The words were harsh.
True.
Matteo accepted them.
Then he looked at Alessia.
“There’s something else.”
Of course there was.
“The ledger isn’t about money.”
“What is it about?”
“Names.”
Politicians. Judges. Business executives. Police officials.
People Stefano had controlled for decades.
“The complete list is encrypted,” Matteo said. “The silver key opens the device containing it.”
Enzo frowned.
“What device?”
Matteo looked at Alessia.
“Your grandmother has it.”
Nona was searched.
Nothing.
Then she removed the old pendant she had worn every day of Alessia’s life.
Inside was a tiny storage chip.
Enzo almost laughed.
“Nona.”
She shrugged.
“People rarely search old women properly.”
They returned to the villa.
The chip contained hundreds of files.
One name appeared repeatedly near the top.
Marco Bellandi.
Enzo stared at his consigliere.
Alessia’s stomach dropped.
Marco read the screen.
Then slowly lifted his hands.
“I can explain.”
Before he could, every guard outside raised a weapon.
Not at Marco.
At Enzo.
Luca entered.
His scarred face was expressionless.
“I’m sorry, boss.”
Enzo looked around.
Half his security force had turned against him.
Then Stefano Bellandi walked through the front door.
Alive.
May you like
Smiling.
“Hello, little brother.”
